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At Least 128 Dead in Paris Attacks; More Attacks Could be at Large; France: ISIS Attack "Act of War", 129 Dead, 350+ Hurt. Aired 4- 5p ET

Aired November 14, 2015 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[16:01:23] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone, we want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I am Poppy Harlow, joining you live from Paris with our special coverage of the terror attacks that triggered a state of emergency throughout this country.

I want to update you on what we know at this hour. French officials now say that three coordinated teams of terrorists are behind the worst violence that this country has seen since World War II. At this hour the death toll stands at 129 lives lost, at least one American we know is dead, a 23 year old. Another 352 people were injured. Ninety nine of them in the hospital in critical condition at this hour.

Terrorists armed with automatic rifles, kalashnikovs, suicide vests carried out attacks at six different locations throughout Paris on Friday night. I want to show you some video but I want to warn you first it is very graphic. What you're looking at is a cell phone video that shows survivors at the site of that massacre right behind us at the Bataclan nightclub and concert hall. Some of them jumping from windows trying to escape the carnage taking place inside. Other victims rushing out of the theater. First responders literally having to drag people to safety.

ISIS claiming responsibility today, warning these attacks are, "the first of the storm." The French president Francois Hollande promising a ruthless response, likening these attacks to a "act of war." Right now police are scrambling to track down possible accomplices and not just here in France. There have been a series of raids, we have seen a number of arrests in Belgium this afternoon that are connected we're told by authorities to the attacks in Paris last night.

In the meantime, some 1,500 French soldiers deployed across this country, across this city, trying to prevent any future attacks. Earlier today I spoke with people here in Paris on the streets right around us, people who live in this neighborhood, who love this city. Their grief is palpable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW (on camera): You pass by the theater where the shooting was every day on your way to work. What is going through your mind right now? How are you feeling?

MATINA, WALKS BY THE THEATER EVERY DAY TO WORK: I feel sad and I don't want to feel scared, but I do feel scared.

HARLOW: How are you feeling in the wake of this attack as a citizen of this country?

UNIDENTIFED MALE: I don't know. It's not bad to be afraid by this, I think, because we have to live. Some people can kill us, I think.

HARLOW: Are you scared?

UNIDENTIFED MALE: A little.

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Got the feeling it could happen to us, and that it could happen to everyone over the world. I mean, there is something intangible that happens, and there is a fear and something like kind of unfair feeling, but we definitely for, on my side, I think we really have to think about the roots of the source, why, how it can happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: All right, I want to bring in Jim Sciutto. He is here with me on the ground. Deb Feyerick also with us, joining us on the phone from New York, working our sources. Jim, to you first, I mean, the fact as we have been here as the hours progressed today, the magnitude of this is one thing, right, Belgium, Paris, six coordinated attacks pulled off and not a trace was noticed by the authorities. How does this go unknown, untracked when you have something so coordinated?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's a very tough good question because we were here in January for the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, five minutes down the street from here.

HARLOW: Ten months ago.

SCIUTTO: At the time they were talked about raising the alert and France was at its highest alert. God knows they were looking for this kind of thing, so how do you manage to have such a coordinated and broad scale attack, which frankly is French, but it's also international. There are now raids as we know going on in Belgium, there is an arrest in Germany that we believe is connectedfd. How does that happen is something the French authorities are digging more into right now. It's (INAUDIBLE) the kind of attack that U.S. and European counterterrorism officials have been concerned about for some time, seven attackers, three coordinated groups, multiple targets around the city, kalashnikovs, automatic weapons as well as explosives that they appeared to have made themselves, (INAUDIBLE) which is a popular kind of explosives, with Al Qaeda-linked groups, the French though pinning this on ISIS and now we have this claim from ISIS.

16:00:05

HARLOW: What about the fact that we know at this point that one of the attackers appears to be a French national and the fact that you heard Francois Hollande, the president of France, saying earlier today this was coordinated outside, but helped to be executed internally and the concern about the internal French involvement?

SCIUTTO: Enormously important comments and details. First let's talk about what we know about the suspects. The one we know - we reported this earlier in the day, a French national from south of Paris, it was identified by fingerprints, he was known to police, radicalized in 2010, but they didn't believe that he was involved in terror and, therefore, weren't watching him. This again harkens back to Charlie Hebdo. Because the (INAUDIBLE) brothers who carried the attacks, they have been under surveillance and then no longer. To be fair, this country has hundreds, perhaps thousands of suspected jihadis. Impossible to have all the security forces necessary to watch each one of them, so it's a judgment call.

In two cases you have a bad judgment call. So let's talk again about the assailants here. One was French but you also found a Syrian, an Egyptian passport near the bodies of the others. The Syrian passport was of a national who entered the country via Greece, so says the Greece government.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: Now, we don't know that passport could have been stolen, there's a huge black market, but still that's one clue. We do know that there were international ties because you now have raids in Belgium tied to this attack and you had an arrest in Germany a week before the attack and you have Francois Hollande saying local support but foreign direction, so there was some command and control it appears from ISIS central.

And that's remarkable, as well, when you think of the level of alert in this country that speaks to communications that could have been intercepted, et cetera. The fact that they could pull that off, something so coordinated, so deadly, really is remarkable. And it's scary.

HARLOW: Does it speak to the changing nature if you will, Jim, of ISIS?

SCIUTTO: Absolutely. Certainly growing threat. Look just in the last week we've had three attacks now. You've had this in France, you've had the bombings in Beirut, and you have, unofficially determined an ISIS attack that brought down that French jet, but that is the going theory.

So here is a group that the president said on Monday was contained in Iraq and Syria, to be fair the president was speaking purely about the battlefield -

HARLOW: Technically contained, and there have been gains made. You saw the Kurds take back Sinjar, but the fact is, it's not contained as an international threat, because it is showing up in many countries and showing its ability to project terror in those countries. HARLOW: We heard that from U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry today

exactly saying they are more - there's more will now than ever to defeat them everywhere they are in the world.

SCIUTTO: No question. And no simple solution to this problem.

HARLOW: No question.

SCIUTTO: You have people say shut the borders, but this was also a local problem, it's a home grown problem too. So shutting the borders does not stop it.

HARLOW: Absolutely with that one French national and we're yet to learn the identities of the others. Jim Sciutto stay with me, Deb Feyerick, joinng me on the phone, working her sources.

Deb, when you talk about the arrests and the raids in Belgium, what can you tell us on that front?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we do know is that investigators believe that there's a connection to Belgium, specifically because of a car with Belgian license plates that was found at the scene of one of the attacks. The attack near the theater, and so that car linked back to Belgium and a source telling me that, in fact, they do believe that at least one of those raids, several of them taking place in that Belgium suburb, were actually directly connected to those attackers.

And investigators are looking at who was able to put this together, and they are looking at the little evidence that they do have, so, for example, as Jim mentioned, they found passports at the attacks. Now it doesn't mean these passports actually belong to the individuals involved. Maybe it's they are making a statement, maybe they are trying to throw people off or lay blame for the reason they did this at the feet of someone else.

So they are looking at that. They are also looking at the identification of an individual who they now know, a French national who was radicalized in 2010 and has a criminal record, they are trying to find out who he knew, what the links are there. So that's another thing, forensics being done on the devices, on the devices themselves, because investigators really want to know who not only built these suicide vests, but who may have designed these vests.

HARLOW: Right.

FEYERICK: And that's crucial, because we have seen plots where you have a single bomb maker who is able to make these devices that, obviously, are then distributed to individuals who are willing and ready to detonate themselves. Seven of those terrorists detonating the suicide vests and killing themselves and there's also a question as to who their handler was, who was managing them, so you have to look at this.

This isn't just sort of a Paris-centric attack. This is an attack that could have involved multiple people in multiple countries giving orders, giving directions. That's what you've got.

16:10:00

You've got an asymmetrical kind of warfare where if this is ISIS directed, then there is somebody who is sending teams out to do these kinds of attacks, and we have to keep in mind the ultimate goal, you think of the number of people killed and number of people who are injured, the ultimate goal of these attacks is chaos, it is terror, it is shutting down the psyche of a nation so that they feel that they are vulnerable by hitting Paris again, Poppy, they sent a very loud message that we got you in January at "Charlie Hebdo" and at the Jewish market and now we have come back to get you again and that's the great fear.

That's why investigators are looking at a very broad net of people who may have been arrested in the last couple of weeks and months to see what the connections are that may have been up to now.

HARLOW: Absolutely, and that is the central question, is you've got a handful of people now, right, that they have neutralized, if you will, but how big is this web and that is the question.

Right now as I show you some live pictures across the beautiful city of Paris, people honoring the victims, we'll let you go to break quickly with that vision. We'll be back to you in just a moment live from Paris. Our special coverage continues.

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HARLOW: Welcome back to our special live coverage from Paris in the wake of the terror attack, the deadliest this country has seen in decades. The world mourning right along with Paris tonight.

Pope Francis tweeting, "I am deeply saddened by the terrorist attacks in Paris. Please join me in the prayer for the victims and their families," #prayersforparis.

16:15:05

U.S. secretary of state John Kerry decried the massacre as vile, horrendous, and outrageous today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I want to make sure that it is absolutely crystal clear that the United states stands with France and the rest of the world in our resolve to eliminate the scourge of violent extremist groups from the face of the earth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: British Prime Minister David Cameron says he is shocked, he also says the United Kingdom will do whatever it can, of course, to help.

Joining me now, Indiana congressman Andre Carson, he sits on the House intelligence committee. Thank you for being with me, congressman.

REP. ANDRE CARSON, INDIANA: Thank you for having us.

HARLOW: You tweeted "To the people of France, we stand unified with you. This morning, all of France is in our hearts and in our prayers." It certainly is. I can tell you being here, walking around, talking to the citizens here, telling me they don't want to be scared, but they are scared, this nation has gone through far too much just 10 months ago the "Charlie Hebdo" attack and now 129 innocent lives taken. Nearly 400 others injured and in the hospital.

In terms of - from an intelligence perspective, we know that ISIS has claimed responsibility, we heard what Secretary Kerry and Francois Hollande had to say earlier today. Anything you can share with us from a U.S. intelligence perspective on this attack and potential threats to the homeland?

CARSON: I will say that when it comes to the intelligence apparatus, the United States is a global leader in terms of the strength of our intelligence community. That is also to say that our European partners and our middle eastern partners have been critical in the fight against terrorism.

ISIL only represents itself, it doesn't represent Islam, it doesn't represent any religion, it is an organization that is being led by countless manipulators and many would argue that it doesn't have a traditional centralized command in which they can launch strikes like other terrorist organizations, but we know that they have sympathizers. We fought in America against an ISIL sympathizer down south at a military training facility, and, you know, it's something that has become a greater challenge for our intelligence agencies to counter, but we're working together with law enforcement officials, day and night to eliminate the threat ultimately.

HARLOW: You know, you heard President Obama say in that interview this week on "Good Morning America" with George Stephanopoulos that ISIS has been contained. To be fair, he was speaking about on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq and we have seen that, but when you look at that and now you see what has happened, this really what has evolved into a new stage of ISIS's ability, this coordinated attack, six different locations across Paris, arrests in Belgium, arrests in Germany a few weeks ago potentially tied to this.

The coordination, I think, is staggering and I wonder what you think it tells us about what needs to happen as this war on ISIS, as Francois Hollande deemed it today, an act of war, is carried forward?

CARSON: Well, certainly, our hearts go out to the victims, their families, and the people of France. I think the president is right in terms of having a battlefield context, but in the abstract we're fighting against an ideology. We're fighting against a mentality that doesn't have a clear objective. All we know is that they are harming people, they are harming people from all stripes and all religions, and they don't represent anything remotely religious.

It is a terrorist organization that clearly has troubled people as a part of it, and as we move forward, we would love to see, as we're seeing in France right now, a united front across racial, religious, and cultural lines. We would love to see a global united front against this and other terrorist organizations.

HARLOW: So, on that front, congressman, there is this unreleased video, released, I should say, rather undated video, that is urging Muslims who are unable to travel to Syria, for example, to wage war, to carry out attacks here in this country in France. You are the first Muslim to sit on the House intelligence committee.

I'm interested for you personally when you see something like that, when you see a perverse message like that, what do you think and what do you say to everyone out there who may be receiving this video?

CARSON: Well, there are nearly two billion Muslims on the planet. While the religion is monotheistic, it is not a monolithic religion. I will say that most Muslims are peace loving Muslims, they condemn these actions.

16:20:00

As someone who sits on the House intelligence committee, I'm also a former police officer, I think I'm the only member of Congress who has served in a Homeland Security intelligence fusion center very proudly, I can say that there are scores of Muslims in our country and outside of our country who are working in our law enforcement agencies and intelligence communities quite frankly who are helping to thwart attacks and who are working vigorously in making sure that the world is a better and safer place.

HARLOW: You know, congressman, as one young couple just told me earlier this evening, I was speaking with them, they said I think we need to get to all know each other a little bit better. It won't solve all problems, but we need to know one another so we don't kill one another, and that certainly resonated with me. Representative Andre Carson, I appreciate your time this evening, sir. Thank you.

CARSON: An honor, thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you. We're going to take a quick break. Much more from Paris live after this.

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HARLOW: Welcome back to our continuing live coverage from Paris this evening. I'm Poppy Harlow. And as we speak, police are scouring the streets of the city for possible suspects and investigators are analyzing residue, I should say, from many bomb sites across this city.

16:25:00

The investigation is global, at this point, it is stretching far, far beyond France. The main prosecutor here in Paris saying seven terrorists were killed, all with armed identical machine guns and strapped with explosives. Three separate teams of terrorists conducted the deadly attacks in Paris. Raids in Belgium are linked to the Paris attacks, as well. We know there have been several arrests in a suburb of Brussels. What we do know is that a car rented in Brussels was found near one of the sites of the Paris attack, and that is what triggered the raids there.

Joining me now, CNN national security analyst correspondent Jim Sciutto with me, because we have some breaking news. As you can understand right now, things are very fluid. Just come over here, Jim, you can use my microphone. What do we know?

SCIUTTO: So, we have a French official telling CNN that they are still concerned there may be other attackers out there. They don't have hard information that's the case, but they are covering every base, because they are not 100 percent certain, and I'll tell you one measure of that. There was a false alarm just in the last several minutes at the hotel.

HARLOW: About 20 minute drive from here, across the Seine.

SCIUTTO: Big police presence, they went searching room to room, there was also a police presence outside the Eiffel Tower and outside a metro station, a subway station here in Paris, it turned out to be a false alarm. That's what police tell us. That's the level of alert right now. Of course, they don't want to leave any threats or possible threat untaken care of.

HARLOW: Just to be clear for our viewers, obviously, they never said today at any point that every attacker was contained or neutralized, but this is a development, that now something has triggered them to believe there may be more out there. Do we know why?

SCIUTTO: Either something triggered them or to be fair this is out of an abundance of caution. Remember, they are just learning really and confirming how big this attack was. One thing they do know and the French president has said is confident in, even if these seven attackers who are now dead were the only attackers, they believe there was a larger support network that, for instance, was getting them cars, that was helping getting them the explosives, get the weapons, the ammmmunition, et cetera, and that then leads, as we know, beyond France, because you've had raids in Belgium now and you have arrests in Germany last week. The police are making sure there aren't still attackers out there.

HARLOW: This web is coming together a bit more. Additionally we learned today that a Syrian passport was found next to one of the bodies of the attackers. Do we know about the authenticity?

SCIUTTO: Well, we do. Law enforcement sources tell our Pamela Brown, they believe it is an authentic passport and we know that the Greek government registered this passport as having passed through Greece, the island of Laros, which is a main entry point for many of the refugees coming from Europe.

Now it is possible that passport was stolen or sold or taken by someone so that that refugee was not the attacker, but it is also possible that one of these attackers came in through that influx of refugees from Syria.

HARLOW: Which has been such a contentious point and has been so politically heated in the debate about the migrant crisis.

SCIUTTO: And already taken advantage of. European politicians, you're going to have Ben Carson in the U.S. political debate campaign saying this is a sign that Europe has to close its borders to the refugees.

HARLOW: All right. Jim Sciutto, thank you very much. Stay with us, appreciate the reporting. I want to go straight to our panel, get their take on this.

Joining me now, national security panellist Peter Bergen, CNN military analyst Ltl. Col. Rick Francona, former Homeland Security assistant secretary Juliette Kayyem.

Peter, to you, you penned an op-ed that was just posted on cnn.com and in it you say these attackers that pulled off this coordinated attack in six different locations in Paris last night have learned a lesson from their predecessors, harkening back to Mumbai in 2008. Tell me more.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: One thing I'm very interested in is the use of TATP. Because TATP is an explosive which the French prosecutor was saying was used in these bombs is very unstable, and the reason that the bombers use it is because you can make it from common household ingredients, essentially, hydrogen peroxide. It was used in the 777 attacks in London, it was used in an attempt to bring down American planes leaving Heathrow in 2006, luckily that was averted, and it was also used in the (INAUDIBLE) attempt to blow up bombs in Times Square around the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

And, you know, to make this you need a lot of training because it's highly unstable, you also need a bomb factory. The investigators must surely be looking for where the bomb factory was. They could have made it themselves, they could have been given it, but it's not something you can just learn on the internet. There is a training process, and if you don't get it right, you can blow yourself up very easily.

HARLOW: And Juliet, now you just heard what Jim Sciutto reported, that officials here are saying there is heightened concern at this hour there may still be more potential attackers, terrorists tied in this web on the loose. As formerly with the Department of Homeland Security, if you're looking at this from their perspective as they deployed 1,500 troops here across Paris, what are you doing at this hour with that information?

[16:30:09] JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I would do the same thing the Paris officials are doing -- you have to assume that something more is happening. At least until you're able to begin and the investigation and figure out how an attack of this magnitude Peter was just describing occurred without anyone finding out. So, we have a terminology, ATM, you've got to follow the ATM, which is the arms, right, the training, and the money.

Because this was a big event, it does not just happen overnight. How did they get those weapons? How did they get the bomb materials? How did they test them?

And then on training, these are highly sophisticated attacks, were they in Syria or some place else? And money -- these men had to survive somehow, and who was funding them? So that's where this investigation is going.

But I would tell you if I were in France or anywhere in Europe, you just have to assume that this is not the end of it. It is not to scare people. It is only to push out security efforts, as well as keep people vigilant, because we simply don't know at this stage.

HARLOW: And, Colonel Francona, to you. I mean, look, we saw this in the wake of the "Charlie Hebdo" attack, the Kouachi brothers, who had been trapped by intelligence here in France because they'd been radicalized, then were no longer tracked and then "Charlie Hebdo" took place. The fact you have one French national now according to the Paris prosecutor involved in this, the fact that Francois Hollande, the president of France, is saying this was coordinated with help from the inside, from French people -- what does it tell you about the ability to track people that are radicalized and see them through so something like this doesn't happen?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET), FORMER U.S. MILITARY ATTACHE : Well, I think it's a question of resources. They've had thousands of French nationals go to the battlefields of Syria and Iraq and acquire this training and combat skill, and many of them have returned. In fact, so many the French admitted there's no way they can possibly track all these people.

If you take the sheer numbers of the people that have come back versus the numbers of the resources the French can apply to this, no way they can follow them all, so they have to prioritize them and they have to go through a system of saying, OK, we're going to follow these people because they represent what we believe to be a threat.

And, of course, people are going to fall through the cracks. So this is a very, very difficult problem. I don't know how they get over that hurdle.

HARLOW: But what do you -- I mean, you have to, I mean, we heard Francois Hollande say today this is an act of war. We, the French people, will be ruthless.

What can you do to counter this?

FRANCONA: Well, you go after the problem at its root cause, and I think he eluded to that. France will be the leader and they are going to be vicious, and I think what he means is and I hope what he means is they are going to put more pressure on ISIS in their homeland in Syria and Iraq. We have already heard that the French have increased their airstrikes. They've expanded their operations into Syria, prior to that they were only in Iraq. We heard ISIS allude to this, French expanding resources would be a source of retaliation and that's what we're seeing.

I think the root cause -- the solution is to go after the root cause. The root cause is ISIS in Raqqa, in Sinjar, in Mosul, that's where we have to go.

HARLOW: Yes, and this coming at a week when there was certainly a Kurdish and coalition victory when you talk about Sinjar, but it's a lot more than just that.

Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thank you. Juliette Kayyem, thank you. Peter Bergen, appreciate it as well. Thank you all for the analysis.

More now on that American that we told you about at the top of the hour, confirmed dead in this attack. She is a 23 year old. Her name is Nohemi Gonzalez. She is a student at California State University- Long Beach. She was a junior.

She was in Paris attending state college of design during her semester abroad program. Something so many American college students do. She was here enjoying her Friday night like so many other innocent victims.

It is not known which of the attacks did take her life. We will let you know when we know more on that. There will be a vigil held for her tomorrow at Cal State in Long Beach.

Quick break. We're back live from Paris in just a moment.

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HARLOW: Welcome back. I'm Poppy Harlow live this evening in Paris.

This is our special continuing coverage of the terror attack that has triggered a nation in mourning and also a state of emergency in France. Something we haven't seen here in more than 50 years.

Here's what we know at this hour: French prosecutors say seven terrorists were working in three coordinated teams. They carried out a series of shootings and suicide bombings last night at six different locations across this city: 129 people were killed, 352 were wounded. The worst carnage at the Bataclan concert hall, that is where 89 people were brutally murdered, some of them right at point-blank range.

Survivors describing a slow-motion massacre. The killers just shooting, reloading, and shooting, and reloading. All of the attackers then either killed themselves by detonating their suicide vests, or were shot and killed by police.

There have been multiple arrests made in Belgium, that is where authorities today carried out raids in the suburbs of Brussels. A source telling us here at CNN that at least one of those raids is tied to Friday's attacks, which began with suicide bombings at a Paris soccer stadium.

French fans leaving the stadium showing their solidarity, singing the French national anthem.

British author and columnist for "The Financial Times" Simon Kuper was inside of the Stade de France for that match, that friendly match between France and Germany. That is when two explosions went off. He is with me now.

We've seen it play out on television over and over again. You were there in the stadium. What was it like?

SIMON KUPER, THE FINANCIAL TIMES COLUMNIST: It was very confusing. I mean, there was a very loud bang nearly 20 minutes into the game and a lot of people laughed and cheered because they thought it was fireworks, sometimes happens at soccer games. It was too loud for that. And then, few moments later, there was a louder bang, the ground shook a bit, and I thought this is not fireworks. And --

[16:40:00] HARLOW: And they were playing between the two explosions, right?

KUPER: The game continued throughout, was never interrupted for any of this. France scored about 20 minutes after the first explosion. There was huge cheering in the stadium. Second half France scored again. Again, huge cheering. People did the Mexican wave after the two explosions.

The fans initially didn't know. And towards the end of the game, most people were getting news on their phones about shootings in Paris. We'd heard these were explosions outside the stadium, we didn't know what they were. It appears suicide bombers intended to blow up themselves inside the stadium, which would have been way worse.

HARLOW: Of course, president of France is there, Francois Hollande. And some are saying, look, the fact that he was there, beefed up security, may have actually saved so many lives.

KUPER: Yes, there was also a report one steward very cleverly turned one of these guys away, wouldn't let him in. So, the aim was to do this on live television in front of the president, the biggest forum imaginable, 80,000 people packed closely. It doesn't bear thinking about. And France is hosting the European Soccer Championships in June.

HARLOW: Well, in December, you've got COP21, huge climate change global summit in December.

KUPER: Yes, this city is going to have to do a lot to reduce its freedom and increase its security.

HARLOW: You live here, this is your neighborhood, Simon.

KUPER: Yes.

HARLOW: Talking to you as someone who moved to New York in 2001 just days before 9/11, it is that delicate balance we strike between our freedom and protecting ourselves and our beloved city and those we love. When you say reduce freedom, what kind of city do you want to live in?

KUPER: I don't want to live in that kind of city, but Paris is a fantastically free city and it's a city of public space. You're always in public. I mean, people live in small apartments, you're out on the streets all the time, you don't have backyards in backyards in Paris. You don't have barbecues, you're on the street, you're in squares, cafes, restaurants, theaters, soccer stadiums.

You live in Paris to be outside and with other people. That, of course, from a terrorist point of view is danger.

HARLOW: So, what would you like to see done? I mean, they have 1,500 police now across France, most of them concentrated right here in Paris. What would make you feel comfortable as you walk the streets here in your neighborhood?

KUPER: I don't want to live in a militarized camp, and New York didn't become that. It became that for a while then became New York again. It became a great city again. I want Paris to be this great city where you can walk into a cafe, and you sit down and you feel happy and don't wonder about what other people there are doing and whether anyone is up to something.

In Paris, to live in Paris, live in New York, you have to have trust in your millions of fellow citizens and we've managed that incredibly well. I was listening to conversations by the Bataclan between orthodox Jews and Muslims chatting, laughing, joking, comparing religions, and that is most of the time what Paris is about. We get along pretty well here.

HARLOW: Forty-three-year-old man who immigrated here from West Africa eight years ago told me Paris is an incredibly welcoming place. Obviously, we hear differently from some, but it is a beloved city to so many.

KUPER: People here are irritable because we all have cabin fever because we all live too closely cramped together, but the amount of dealings every day you have with people different origins, different religions, and you know what, almost all the time we just get along pretty well.

I know there are ethnic sanctions, but to me Paris is a miracle, 12 million people from everywhere and we've made it work in a casual and relaxed way. I worry that might change.

HARLOW: Simon Kuper, thank you very much for joining me, so sorry this happened, especially right here in your neighborhood. Thank you. Appreciate it very much.

Simon Kuper with us. Again, he was in the stadium when the explosions rang out. Quick break. We're back on the other side.

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[16:47:38] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Pamela Brown. We'll return to Poppy in just a minute. She is in Paris, France. But here in the U.S., the NFL has just announced it will have an

increased presence at games this weekend, given the terrifying incident right outside France's national soccer stadium. Also, New York Governor Cuomo announced today state agencies are under heightened alert and using new surveillance measures.

Joining me now is former CIA counterterrorism analyst Buck Sexton.

Buck, first to you, because there are football games happening all weekend. College football games, as well as NFL games. How concerned should the average U.S. citizen be right now?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think the best way to describe it would be on heightened alert for the authorities and just the continued vigilance that all Americans should have in a post-9/11 era. If they have some sense that something around them is going awry, they should bring it to the attention of the authorities.

But we can't live in fear and we can't decide that we're going to make this something that changes our way of life here at home just because of what's happened in Paris. There's, obviously, a lot going on right now, lot of liaison, intelligence sharing between the various European services and all of the agencies and law enforcement groups here in this country that are trying to prevent a similar thing from happening, but no such thing as perfect security.

The Islamic States had a lot of time to plan, equip, and put together these kind of operations. This is not the last of this kind of operation we're going to see and this is something of a wake-up call, not just for Europe, but for all of the West.

BROWN: I've been speaking to officials in the FBI, other agencies in the U.S. They're all working throughout the weekend.

Looking at the people that the U.S. has already been monitoring. Director Comey of the FBI has said there are 900 open investigations on potential terrorists right here in the U.S.

Walk us through what is happening right now with intelligence officials, law enforcement officials, with these cases.

SEXTON: Well, this is very similar to the sorts of cases I had to handle in the NYPD intelligence division. You have individuals that have some kind of a tie to radicals, perhaps people that have been prosecuted for some sort of terrorist-related activity, oftentimes, it's material suprot to a terrorists.

But just being on the radar, so to speak, is not something that's necessarily prosecutable. So you could have people known to, say, the FBI or other law enforcement agencies here at home who are saying these sorts of things that would raise eyebrows and that would be concerning.

[16:50:05] That show a degree of radicalization, that show perhaps they have even gone to the edge of jihadization, where they decided that they might, in fact, try to partake or assist others in partaking of jihad. But that's not necessarily something law enforcement can pounce on and there are so many of these open cases across the country. As the FBI director has said, as well as others, that you can't have a perfect scoreboard. You're not going to be able to keep an eye on everyone all the time.

And so, you really have to do a degree of triage, despite all the resources we have in a post-9/11 era, we also don't want to live in a policed state and individuals under suspicion do have rights. So, it's a big ask for law enforcement and intel agencies in this country to get it right all the time and as we see in Europe, unfortunately, we don't get it right all the time.

BROWN: Absolutely, and as you point out, they have a finite number of resources. Speaking to officials after the Paris attack, a big concern is they can't see all the cases, as well, with encryption. So, certainly, officials have their work cut out for them.

Buck sexton, thank you so much.

SEXTON: Thank you.

BROWN: We'll have more live team coverage from Paris right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:55:30] HARLOW: All right. You are looking at live pictures from the Place de la Republique in the heart of Paris. People gathered there, hundreds of them earlier this evening in a show of strength and solidarity of this city, for the people of France, despite the government advising people to stay indoors tonight because, of course, we heard as our Jim Sciutto reported that French officials believe there may still be potential attackers on the loose.

But again, you see the people of France gathered at the Place de la Republique showing their support for one another and for the city that they love so much. Attacks like what we witnessed in Paris threaten fuels and a phobia in many people on edge right now.

Earlier today, I spoke with a 43-year-old man, Bukary Suwaneh. He emigrated here from West Africa eight years ago. His 25-year-old niece Ava (ph) is one of the victims of this horrific attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Did she tell you anything about the attack?

BUKARY SUWANEH, WEST AFRICAN IMMIGRANT FROM FRANCE: No, she didn't tell me anything about the attack. She only tells me that when they came to the restaurant, you know, they started firing. Then that's the time she went to go out, then they shot her one hand and one here and one at her leg.

HARLOW: They shot her arm and then her leg twice?

SUWANEH: Yes. HARLOW: Does she feel lucky that she survived?

SUWANEH: Yes, she feels lucky because there was 18 victims there, all dead.

HARLOW: Did any of her friends die?

SUWANEH: Huh?

HARLOW: Did any of her friends, were any of her friends killed?

SUWANEH: Yes, her friend, two of her friends, they are killed.

HARLOW: They are killed.

SUWANEH: Yes, yes, and the one organized the birthday, she's in between dead and alive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Again, you heard him saying there his 25-year-old niece Ava, she was shot three times at the Rue de Charonne at a restaurant there, La Belle Equipe. And she is a survivor but she had part of one of her legs amputated, he told me. She feels lucky that she survived considering two of her friends celebrating that birthday last night were killed.

We'll have much more live from Paris right after this.

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